Jim Kunstler in Business Week:
The suburbs were largely products of industrialism. We had a huge supply of oil and cheap undeveloped land, and we decided to become a happy, motoring utopia. It had many practical benefits. The trouble is after a while it became a cartoon of country living …
Cheap oil is what made suburbia possible. But we’ll run into problems with spot shortages. As we get into trouble with these supplies, our economy will suffer. Major instabilities in the system will present themselves much sooner than we are led to believe. And by that I mean the way we produce food, the way we conduct commerce, and the way we move around …
Virtually anything organized on a grand scale is liable to fall into’ trouble — government, finance, corporate enterprise, agribusiness, schools. Our gigantic metroplex cities will prove to be inconsistent with the energy diet of our future. I think our smaller cities and towns will be reactivated. We are going to be a far less affluent society.
(Via Richard Florida.)
